<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Back to Black by StrivingForImprovement</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29043081">Back to Black</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrivingForImprovement/pseuds/StrivingForImprovement'>StrivingForImprovement</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Cheating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Hurt No Comfort, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Threats of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:48:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,716</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29043081</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrivingForImprovement/pseuds/StrivingForImprovement</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Loki catches Tony naked in bed with Pepper, he gave him a choice. His answer isn’t what he expects and he will make Stark pay for betraying him like this. He would suffer.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Loki/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>My Ultimate Avengers Playlist</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Back to Black</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was the most basic ultimatum heard around the galaxy. “It’s either her or me.” Not new, not novel. It was definitely not a complicated decision, Loki thought. He had no doubts when he said it who Stark would pick. It was obvious to him who could give him more. He could give him love, knowledge, protection, loyalty, even children if he wanted. He would give him anything and as a person who had the power to get access to almost anything in the nine realms if he so desired it, that meant a lot. When he thought back to all of those nights when they were alone, where Stark had held him in his arms lovingly under the moonlight and declared his love for him over and over he thought that the choice between him and Pepper would be like choosing between a regular hunk of metal and a shining piece of gold.</p><p>He chose the metal. He chose her.</p><p>It took him a while to speak. “What?”</p><p>Loki felt silly for saying it, like a character in a sappy romance novel that had just been betrayed by someone the audience knew was going to betray them the whole time but he dared him to say it again, to repeat it. The man didn’t even do him the decency look at him when he said it. Then there was <em> her </em>. He would gladly pull her spinal cord out and use the muscles attached as a rope to asphyxiate her if he wasn’t so focused on his anger at the man who had repeatedly sworn that he loved him more than life himself. There weren’t words invented for the great amounts of physical and mental pain and torment he wanted to bring on Stark for doing this to him but he would invent them. He would gladly invent them.</p><p>He had given him his heart. He had told him things, he had <em> done </em> things for him and with him that he had never done with anyone. He had allowed him to see him at his weakest and told him details of himself that he had never trusted anyone else with. There were things he told him about himself that even his own mother didn’t know and now he sat there staring at the man who could only look at him with cold hard unloving eyes that held nothing for him. Loki had seen a picture of Howard Stark earlier in their relationship and now it scared him because, for the first time in his life, Tony looked exactly like his father.</p><p>“So that’s it then?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“You would give me away.”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“For her?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“You think you can just throw me away like a piece of trash once you’re done with me?”</p><p>Tony hesitated. “I’m not throwing you away.”</p><p>Loki stared at him for a second. If the wench weren’t here he’d be crying by now but he refused to show such a pathetic sign of weakness in front of her. “You said you loved me.” It was a whisper.</p><p>Tony stared at him for a few seconds and then shrugged. “I lied.”</p><p>Loki stared for a few seconds before his eyes widened slowly and he threw his head back and laughed, long and hard and cruel. “No, you didn’t.”</p><p>Loki started to advance towards the bed where the two still lay naked. Pepper stood cautiously and held a hand out towards Loki passively, the other using the sheet to try and cover her naked form. “Now Loki, please-”</p><p>Loki picked her up by her throat in a very familiar manner and threw her. He heard Tony shout her name as she crumpled against the wall, a small blood trail from the back of her head smeared against the paint from where her head dragged down to join the rest of her unconscious body. He tried to turn to look at her but before he could he felt Loki climb on top of him, straddling his legs his hands held above his head tight by one of Loki’s while Loki’s other hand eyes began to glow green with power and unreleased magic. </p><p>“Worry less about her. She’s still living. She’s not the one who invited someone into our bed after telling me she loved me. She didn’t hurt me. You did.” Loki was seething. His words were coming out through clenched teeth, a look of fury on his face the likes of which Tony had never seen before. </p><p>“Look Loki I-” Tony shut his mouth quickly when he saw Loki’s glowing hand get closer to him.</p><p>The hand touched him lightly on his arm. It was so light, it was barely grazing him but he screamed out in pain. It was unimaginable. He wanted to pass out but he wasn’t allowed to. His body tried desperately to go into shock but Loki wouldn’t allow it. He kept him there in another realm of horror for what had to have been at least a minute. A minute of him screaming while Loki watched, but his anger not any less present when Tony could finally process things enough to notice him still on top of him.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Tony watched in horror as Loki’s hand hovered mere inches from him waiting for him to try to lie again. He was terrified. He had never been so scared in his entire life. </p><p>He wanted to filter the answer. He wanted to say a version of it that wouldn’t make Loki madder but Loki could feel him trying to come up with a better answer. He put his hand on his chest over the sensitive skin near the arc reactor and pressed down. Tony arched up off of the bed under him throat already raw and eyes wide in terror and pain but Loki held him firm. He wasn’t going anywhere. He wasn’t escaping. There was no escape. At some point, he could feel himself start begging but he couldn’t concentrate on it past the pain and Loki didn’t care anyway. </p><p>When Loki took his hand away again Tony couldn’t breathe. Tears were generously falling from his eyes and his sobs shook his body like a child. Loki released the spell and grabbed his face and made him look at him, his eyes still unhinged. He looked positively crazy.</p><p>“Why.” Loki stretched the word forcing Stark to look him in the eye as he said it. Tony could feel Loki’s hand begin to heat up with the previous spell, and he spoke everything in a jumble, no filter to help make it better.</p><p>“I couldn’t do it anymore! Everywhere we went, every time I went out in public I could feel everyone staring at me and judging me, and trying to pick me apart. They thought I was crazy, they thought there was something wrong with me because a hero was dating a supervillain! I just didn’t want to deal with everyone always staring at me like that, always judging me! It was supposed to be a front at first. Bring Pepper out, show her off pretend we were dating so everyone would think I had moved on and so I could avoid the awkward questions but then we started going out and doing things and I realized it was so much easier. She could give me more. We could go out in public. We could relate on a different level. We could start a family… I…”</p><p>Loki looked briefly over to where Pepper was thrown. He wanted to tear her apart limb from limb. He had offered several times to give Tony children, a family. He had desperately wanted him to say yes, to have his children and raise them together. Tony had said over and over again that he didn’t want kids so Loki had dropped it. Only now he realized that what Tony really meant was that he didn’t want kids with him. Tony started speaking again finishing his confession.</p><p>“I started to wonder what it would be like if my life was always like this so I… I…”</p><p>Loki’s mind went blank except for the white noise going through it. “You left me for her because it was easier?” The words were said with little to no malice. They were said with little to no emotion at all but the tightening of his hand around Tony’s arms threatening to break his wrists told him how he felt. “You broke my heart, destroyed my trust and my hope in any being to ever love me again because it was more convenient for you? You would try to kill me in such a brutal way because it was easier?” The hand around Tony’s neck began to squeeze tighter and tighter slowly as his urge to kill and murder and destroy and eviscerate grew greater and greater by the second. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep me around?”</p><p>“Becuase… Still… Liked… You…” Tony fought to get the words out past the constricting of his airways making it difficult to get in air. Loki kept squeezing. Over the last few weeks, the only time he had seen Stark was at night when he warmed his bed. All day he would make excuses why he couldn’t see Loki whether it be work or training or a mission or a briefing, anything. He told Loki he couldn’t possibly get away and left him to fend for himself all day. Loki knew he was lying, he could always feel when people were lying especially when they lied to him. He could practically taste it in the air when the words came out of Stark’s mouth but he dismissed the thought thinking that Stark could never do something like that. He thought Stark would never hurt him like that and here he was with the proof otherwise spewing from his lips and still crumpled against the wall. Loki had once heard the Midgardian term ‘booty call’. He had laughed at first when he heard of it, the thought of someone being used in such a way by someone who obviously had no feelings for them funny at the time.</p><p>Stark meant to keep him around as some common whore. He just wanted to use Loki at night and then disappear in the day back to his real life, his <em> easy </em>life with the girlfriend no one questioned him for, and the freedom to do whatever he pleased with no one judging him.</p><p>“Is that all I was to you? A secret to be thrown in the back of your closet? A pet to dump when you no longer felt like giving attention to it who would always return to your side when you remembered it existed? A sex toy?”</p><p>Tony was still struggling to breathe. He started to see black spots in his vision after so long with limited air but he knew Loki wouldn’t let him pass out. “I’m… Sorry…”</p><p>And there it was. It was true. It was all true. He never cared about Loki. He loved him but not nearly as lunch as Loki had loved him in return. As it turned out, Tony only loved him as long as it wasn’t inconvenient to love him. The final person to whom he had given to his heart held it in front of him, crushed it with a squeeze of his hand, and threw it at him because it wasn’t worth anything to him. Not once he was inconvenienced.</p><p>Something inside Loki snapped. He would rather be falling in the void. He would rather be tortured by the chitauri. He would rather be told by Odin one hundred times that he was never his, that he had no family, that his father never loved him and that he was the child of a monster. He wished he was never born. He was in so much pain. He would make sure the mortal under him felt the exact same amount of pain he did but he wouldn’t inflict physical wounds. That would be far too easy. Physical wounds healed. Loki wouldn’t so Stark wouldn’t either.</p><p>“You remember what you said when I told you that my invasion had been controlled by the chitauri and that I was under the control of the other the entire time?” Tony nodded tears falling from his eyes but Loki continued. “You said if I had my full power if I had been in control when I was plotting my destruction of Earth I probably would have won. Well, now we’re going to put that theory to the test.” Tony’s eyes grew wider as he realized what he was saying. “I’m going to destroy this place. I am going to take from you everything and everyone you love and hold dear and I’m going to dangle them in front of your face and make you beg for mercy for them only to deny you again and again as you break apart and crumble as your life your very existence is stripped from you. I will leave you broken and when I’m done, when I have finished killing you again and again and again through the destruction of your loved ones, I will make you suffer an even worse fate.”</p><p>“Torture.” It was whispered. Tony hoped it wasn’t true but he knew it was. The look on Loki’s face confirmed it.</p><p>Loki smiled cruelly. “You pathetic little simpleton. You are mortal. You don’t even know what torture is. You couldn’t even begin to imagine the amount of pain and despair it is possible to feel. You didn’t even withstand one of the mildest pain spells in my arsenal. After all, how could I truly torture you if you are still mortal?”</p><p>Tony’s eyes grew wide. “No.” More tears fell from his eyes as he shook his head in fear, begging silently with all of his might for Loki not to do what he was going to do next. Loki patted his cheek lovingly.</p><p>“Luckily for you, there are ways to fix that. I will fill your life with pain and agony every second of every minute of every hour of every day for the rest of eternity. I will take apart and destroy every part of your body except for your brain, to torment you with the memories of everything you held dear crumbling around you in flames of chaos and hatred.”</p><p>Loki stood up, releasing Tony from his hold. The genius doubled in on himself and gasped for breath as steadily as he could in his panicked state. Loki, hands behind his back, looking like the regal prince that he was, looked on at him with a cold smile. He had never looked like this. He had never felt like this. He had never been this crazed, this far off the edge in his life and for the first time in his life, he wasn’t coming back. Ever. This was the last time he would ever feel this crushing hurt and pain again. No one would ever hurt his heart because from this point on, as far as he was concerned, no matter what, he no longer had a heart. He would destroy it with Stark, the two dead lying side by side crushed together. “The supervillain is going to go get ready to destroy this world. Prepare your forces. Tell your government. <em> Assemble </em>. I want you to. I want you to put in your best efforts at survival so that when I rip everything from you it will be all the more painful because you tried desperately to avoid it. I will be back soon. Goodbye.”</p><p>Loki calmly left the room. He headed for the living room balcony where he could transform into a hawk and fly away. He briefly wondered who he would take away first from Stark. As he reached the door he heard Tony loudly calling Pepper’s name begging for her to wake up. He grinned maliciously,  his answer given to him by the very man he would use the information on. This time when he threatened to take over the Earth, he would win.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>We only said goodbye with words</em>
  <br/>
  <em>I died a hundred times</em>
  <br/>
  <em>You go back to her and I’ll go back to</em>
  <br/>
  <em>I’ll go back to black</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>